


See Me Through This Night (fka Light and Dark: With Grace You Live)

by Fenix21



Series: The Grace We Live By [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accelerated Pregnancy, Birth, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mpreg, Pregnant Dean Winchester, Sick Dean Winchester, Wincest - Freeform, mpreg!Dean, non-graphic depiction of birth, slightly AU, timeline all over the place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:44:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's been here before...twice, and he's not sure he can survive it again. Sammy's being a real hero about the whole thing considering Castiel's gone MIA on his paternal duties, but that's only making things worse, and Dean's living with the constant fear that what happened before is going to happen again. How much does he have to pay before he's allowed to be happy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	See Me Through This Night (fka Light and Dark: With Grace You Live)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is working only and completely off the cuff: I'm taking suggestions, please.  
> I have only watched up through season 3, so I'm working on second hand information with Castiel and massacring the timeline something fierce. If it bugs anybody, I apologize up front. 
> 
> WARNING: you are about to read a story containing MPREG as a central theme and accelerated pregnancy and birth, NO graphic depictions of the birth though, I promise. If you don't go for this stuff, stop now. You've been warned.
> 
> Beta'd by me, so forgive the proof job. please.
> 
> I own nothing, just borrowing for a bit.

“Dean, you okay in there?” Sam asked cautiously. 

Dean had been in the bathroom for nearly twenty minutes and had spent the last ten of those dry heaving. Sam had spent the time shifting and fidgeting in his seat, flipping pages of the grimoire spread open on the table in front of him without really seeing the contents. He’d known this wasn’t going to be easy up front. They both had. It wasn’t like it was the first time it had happened, but Sam didn’t remember it being quite this bad before.

“Dean?” he called again, a little louder. He was about to get up when  he heard the toilet flush, water splash in the sink, and the door swung open to Dean leaning heavily into the frame.

He looked like shit, and Sam told him so. “Dean you look like shit.”

Dean cracked a caustic smile. “Thanks, little brother.”

He pushed off the door and made his way to the bed hesitantly, as if he was afraid the motion might just set him off again, and dropped down on it with a small huff of relief. He took a deep breath to ward against another rising wave of nausea and rubbed a hand across his pale, sweaty face.

“So, did you make any headway?”

Sam eyed Dean skeptically, glanced at the grimoire and then back to his brother. “Dean, I don’t think—.”

“Just…spin it, would you,” Dean said tightly.

Sam shook his head and rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, still watching Dean as he hunched on the edge of the bed like his whole body was set and ready to spring for the bathroom again. “Dean, I think maybe we should sit this one out. We can call Ellen and—.”

“And what, Sammy?” Dean snapped. “Have somebody else come in and do the job just because I’ve got a little upset stomach. I’m fine. Just tell me what you’ve got.”

But the exertion of his anger seemed to have gotten the better of him, and Dean groaned almost inaudibly, wrapping an arm around his middle. Sam shut the book with a loud snap and when over to squat down in front of his brother. He reached out and covered Dean’s hand where it was posted on his knee in an attempt to keep him propped up.

“Dean, I think we need to slow down, as in stop for a while. This isn’t getting any better, and if you want to see it through—and we’re getting way too close to the point of no return here—then I think we need to find a place to hole up for a while. You need a chance to rest, get some real food down you, and a full night’s sleep. Please, Dean,” Sam begged quietly. “This isn’t good for the baby.”

Dean’s fingers twitched hard under Sam’s grip. His eyes squeezed tight and he forced out a whispered, “I know.”

Sam reached forward and laid his hand against the low swell of Dean’s belly under his oversized t-shirt and the ubiquitous button down he always wore over it. Dean was in great physical condition, always had been, so the nearly five months of evidence was barely discernible to anyone as anything other than a little extra weight. The fact that he hadn’t actually put on any weight yet and had, in fact, lost a few pounds— which quite frankly scared Sam—aided in disguising the baby bump.

A tear leaked out of the corner of Dean’s eye at the tender gesture.

“Damn it.” He swiped at it furiously but couldn’t bring himself to remove Sam’s hand. The baby wasn’t Sam’s, which was really upsetting enough in itself; but Sam was taking it all in stride, treating Dean and the baby with the utmost care and attention just as if he had fathered it. It drove Dean to guilty tears more than once in the dark of the night when he couldn’t sleep. 

“Dean. Don’t,” Sam said, knowing exactly what direction his brother’s thoughts were turning. He moved to cup Dean’s jaw with one large hand. “Don’t do this to yourself. I am okay with this,” he emphasized the words slowly. “I understand. You did the only thing you could do. You had to turn to someone, Dean. I was out of commission for the long haul for all you knew. Cas was the logical choice.”

“And just where the hell is he now!” Dean almost shouted. He took a quick breath at the sharp twinge in his stomach over the stressed outburst, and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

“Don’t be. It’s okay. He should be here,” Sam said softly. He wasn’t angry at Dean for wanting Cas. He wasn’t even angry at Cas really except that he had vanished off the face of the earth when his brother needed him most. He kept telling himself that if Cas were able, he would be here because he couldn’t leave Dean like this knowing how hard this was going to be on him. 

Sam had the advantage there. He’d seen Dean go through this twice before, not that he’d understood what was going on. The first time had been when they were young, not even out of high school, but old enough that John had left them by themselves with Dean in charge; and it was a good thing, too, as John would probably have been furious when he found out about Dean’s condition. As it was, he was gone for nearly two months, and Dean lost the baby at six weeks. 

He’d toughed it out, probably making himself even sicker because he was fretting over how John would react and trying to keep up a strong front for his little brother so he didn’t get scared. Sam remembered knowing something was wrong, but Dean wouldn’t tell him or talk about it. He remembered Dean calling Pastor Jim in the middle of the night with some excuse and asking to drop Sam off. Dean had come back two days later looking haggard, sicker than before, and hollow eyed. 

It hadn’t lasted, though. Dean was back on his feet in a few days, the gruff but loving exterior firmly in place, and John was never the wiser when he finally arrived home the next week. 

The next time Sam was still at Stanford. Dean stopped on his way through to another job, saying John had sent him on ahead to pick up a Banshee trail before it went cold. He’d taken Sam out for burgers, and it hadn’t occurred to Sam at the time to think it strange his brother was drinking water instead of a beer. Dean had left late that night and called Sam a couple of days later. He hadn’t said much, but his voice was strained like he was in pain.

“Just need to hear your voice, Sammy,” he said.

Sam scowled, his attention drawn away from the case folder he’d been going through for class in the morning. “Dean, you all right? What’s got into you?”

“Nothin’,” Dean said tightly. “I’m fine. I’ll talk to you later, huh?”

“Dean, I—,” Sam started to speak but the line went dead. He sat at the desk staring at his phone for a long minute, seriously debating calling John just to be sure everything really was all right even though he hadn’t talked to the man since he’d left home over a year ago. Dean had never sounded like that, and Sam couldn’t ignore the cold pit left in his stomach when Dean hung up.

It wasn’t until one of his half drunken stupors before his trip to hell in payment for Sam’s resurrection that Dean had come clean on exactly what had happened those two times. Sam wasn’t wholly surprised to find his brother was a carrier. They had a few in the family line going back a few hundred years. What did surprise Sam was how damaged Dean was over the ordeals. 

Dean had always taken care of Sam, had honestly been more of a father to him a lot of times than John was; so it really shouldn’t have come as such a shock to him that Dean wanted a family. The idea just ran contrary to Dean’s hardened exterior, his jaded attitude, and his nomadic lifestyle. Sam hadn’t really given thought to the idea that all those things were only a result of his upbringing and that because he didn’t have that stability in his own childhood, he would want more than ever to provide it for a child of his own. 

Dean had sworn up and down that he couldn’t take another loss, so getting pregnant again was off his to do list permanently, even though Sam knew how much that decision hurt him, too, facing the idea of a life with no family at all except his brother. Why, then, Dean had let Cas do this to him was a question he still hadn’t asked out loud, but it was tearing him up watching his older brother suffer so much. 

He had suggested in a roundabout way the only other alternative solution he could think of, hating himself even as he said the words. Dean had shut him down so fast Sam smarted from the outburst like he’d been physically struck. He only wanted what was best for Dean. He just didn’t want him to have to suffer if he couldn’t carry this baby to term either. Dean, though, despite the horrible timing what with a coming apocalypse, Cas missing, and his previous losses, was bound and determined to try. 

When they made it safely past the third month, longer than Dean had been able to go either time before, they thought maybe he was in the clear. He’d come back from hell a new man in almost every respect, maybe whatever had been wrong with him that made him unable to carry the pregnancies before had been healed.

But then he’d started getting sicker instead of getting better. His appetite had all but failed him completely, and his energy reserves were pretty much completely depleted. He was mostly useless on the hunt and only good as company for Sam on the long drives from town to town when he could muster the strength to stay awake. Sam wasn’t complaining, though. He’d do whatever he had to to see that Dean’s baby was born safe and sound and Dean was taken care of. He owed him that much and more.

Sam squeezed Dean’s hand. “Dean, please, for once just let me take care of you. Listen to me. We need to get you somewhere safe and quiet for a while.”

“And where would that be exactly?” Dean asked drily before flinching at another twinge.

At least he hadn’t turned him down flat, Sam thought. That was progress. “I’ll call Ellen. Maybe she can put us up for awhile.”

“No!” Dean said emphatically, swaying under Sam’s grip at the force of his own denial. “I am not showing up this way in front of Jo.”

“Dean, she wouldn’t care. You don’t need to be embarrassed,” Sam soothed.

“Not embarrassed,” Dean said. “I just…don’t want to hurt her like that.”

Sam sat back a little at that. “Oh. Well, there’s always Bobby?”

“Yeah, and just how well do you think he’d put up with a pregnant guy around his place?” Dean shook his head and tried to straighten up. “No, Sam, for now we should just—.” 

The rest of his thought was lost on a hard moan, and Sam caught his shoulder as he started to double over, arm locked around his belly.

“Dean?”

“Sam, I think…something’s wrong,” Dean gasped.

Sam tensed, ready to spring into action. “Wrong as in ‘supernaturally wrong’? Do I need to go diving for hexbags or something? Or just…wrong?”

“Just…ahhh…wrong,” Dean’s hand clenched around Sam’s and his teeth snapped together. “Sonofabitch. Sam, I think that was a contraction.”

Sam was up with his jacket on and keys in his hand before Dean could even get his breath back. He held out Dean’s coat, guided his arms into it and carefully lifted the shorter man up, bracing him up with a strong arm around his chest. 

“Where’re we going?” Dean asked, trying to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. 

“The hospital,” Sam said flatly. He guided Dean out to the Impala and gently lowered him into the seat. If he could just get Dean to the hospital, maybe they could do something to stop whatever was happening before Dean had to go through losing what hope he’d managed to scrounge together again.

By the time they made the twenty minute drive, Dean was curled around himself in the front seat, fighting to keep his breathing steady. Sam felt sweat bead and run down his back, despite the chilly weather outside and the Impala’s resistance to holding any heat, as he slammed the car into park in front of the emergency room doors and nearly manhandled a couple of nurses into getting his brother out of the car. They whisked him away through double doors and Sam was left with the pretty, sympathetic girl at the nurses’ station trying to fill out insurance papers with shaking hands and remember to write down Dean Ellington instead of Winchester.

They came to get him a few minutes later, saying that Dean was asking for him and could Sam please see if he could get him to relax. He trailed the nurse back to a secluded corner where they had pulled the curtains and attached Dean to about a dozen different machines. 

Dean was indeed fighting the sedatives that dripped slowly into his veins, his eyes fierce and almost wild, only calming slightly when they came to rest on Sam. He grabbed Sam’s hand in an iron grip and forced words past lips and a tongue that were trying to slur with drowsiness,

“Sam, don’t let them take him. Whatever’s wrong with me, don’t let them take him. He has to live,” Dean rasped.

Sam felt a sick mix of adrenaline and panic leak into his blood. He held Dean’s hand hard between his own. “Dean, don’t talk like that. It’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be okay; but they need you to relax and let the medicine work.”

“Sammy, you promise me,” Dean said, pulling Sam down to him with a strength that surprised him. “You promise me, you hear?”

“Dean, I—.” Sam readjusted his grip, stepped closer. What good would it do to save the baby if Dean died? What would Sam be worth without his brother by his side? They had both proven time and time again that no matter their own weaknesses—one of the biggest being each other—they were ultimately strongest together. Sam was ready to make the promise just to appease his brother, but he also knew he would be lying if it came down to it. Which it wouldn’t. Sam had already caught murmurings of words like miscarriage and premature and—God, he wished he hadn’t, but—late term abortion; and the nurses all had that sad choked look in their eyes when they passed by no matter how they tried to hide it. 

Dean wasn’t the one in danger here. It was his baby; and Sam didn’t want to make promises that he knew would break under the strain of fate. He tried to press his brother back against the bed gently.

 “I promise, Dean,” he said quietly.

Dean nodded a little spastically and tried to relax back onto the pillows and let the sedatives do their work. 

The nurses had stripped him of his coat and shirt and the swell of his belly was a little more obvious pressed against the fabric of his t-shirt. Sam reached out and laid a gentle hand there.

“Hang on, little guy,” he murmured. “Your daddy really needs you to hang in there for him. Please.”

~

Dean drifted into a fitful doze not long after, because he was still fighting the sedatives or because the sedatives weren’t strong enough to take on Dean’s metabolism Sam wasn’t exactly sure. Sam sat in the creaking plastic chair by the bed, fingers knitted tightly between his knees, and stared at Dean as his brow alternately furrowed and relaxed and his hands twitched on the sheets, continuously trying to make a fist, maybe to beat the living shit out of some personification of his pain that his dreams had cooked up for him.

“Mr…?”

Sam looked up at the soft interruption from the part in the curtain. “Sam. Just Sam, is fine.”

A shorter woman, maybe thirty something, and wearing a doctor’s white coat came through followed by two nurses. “I’m Dr. Marin. We’re going to admit Dean and move him up to a room.”

“Admit him? There’s something you can do, then?” Sam asked, hope mewling weakly in the pit of his stomach.

Dr. Marin kept her expression neutral—something Sam had long wished he could master—and clasped her hands in front of her, almost as though she were praying. “I’m not going to give you false hope, Sam. Once this…process starts, it almost always runs its course. Is this his first pregnancy?”

“No. Third. He’s had two miscarriages,” Sam said.

The doctor’s brow pulled down a fraction before she could catch it. “A history, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I promise you we will do everything we can to save the baby, but you must accept the possibility of a worst case scenario,” she cautioned gently, but smiled in that way people do when they’re trying to encourage someone else to follow suit. “At least there is a bright spot, though.”

Sam lifted a brow. “Bright spot?”

“You two can always conceive again in the future. Just because this happens, even more than once, doesn’t mean it always will,” she said.

Sam laughed. It sounded ugly and cruel and he wouldn’t have blamed the doctor if she’d flinched from it, but he couldn’t help himself. 

“No. He won’t do this again. I promise you.” He didn’t even bother to tell her the baby wasn’t his. What would it matter at this point?

~

The room wasn’t private, but at least it had no other occupants at the moment. 

Sam was sprawled in the too small faux leather chair that was supposed to fold out into a single bed type thing that would assuredly be about ten inches too short for him. His back ached from either sitting up with his shoulders hunched or slouching down in the chair with his neck bent. He shifted yet again and cast half an eye to Dean who was still dozing on the bed, an IV dripping steadily into him. He’d slipped a little deeper into sleep, but Sam still wasn’t leaving him.

He groaned and sat up again, leaned forward and stretched toward the bed. Dean’s hand was lying on the sheet and Sam slid his fingers under it, holding it in a loose grip. His head was starting to ache, probably because of his tight neck muscles, and he rolled it first one way and then the other trying to dispel the persistent throb, but it refused to lessen. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and when his vision suddenly went sideway he gasped and grabbed at the bedrail. 

_There was blood everywhere. More blood than Sam thought could possibly be in a human body. A baby was crying somewhere out of his line of vision. No…not crying. Screaming. It was a high pitched, brain splitting sound not meant for human ears. He clapped his hands against his head to try and block the sound out and when he looked down he saw Dean on the hospital bed, sheets drenched in blood, body ripped like something had clawed its way out of him._

_But he was still alive, and Sam nearly vomited at the sight of so much of his brother’s blood still spilling in ghastly, weakening spurts from torn arteries and wrended organs._

_“Dean..oh, God…Dean!” Sam dropped to his knees, slipping on pools of sticky blood and fluids, searching out Dean’s hand amid the mess and finding it, slick and wet and limp._

_Dean worked his jaw weakly, eyes darting erratically, maybe in search of that god-forsaken sound of wailing. He forced out a breath and moved his mouth around it. Sam leaned in, trying to hear._

_“Kill…it, Sammy,” Dean breathed. Blood gurgled in his throat and he coughed weakly and choked._

_Sam turned to look over his shoulder and saw a woman he didn’t recognize standing in the corner of the room holding a bloody infant. He tried to scramble to his feet, but couldn’t gain purchase on the blood slick floor._

_“You give my brother’s baby back!” he yelled._

_The woman smiled and tsked at him with a raised finger. “Oh, I don’t think so, Sammy boy.”_

_Just then the infant turned his head and Sam saw black eyes peering out of the screaming face._

~

Sam’s whole body convulsed in rebellion to the vision and he found himself on the hospital floor, drenched in sweat, but at least not in blood, with a knot forming at the back of his head where he’d hit it on the tile.

He lay there breathing deeply for a few seconds, keeping his eyes wide open to the lights above him to dispel the gruesome vision in his head. When his heart rate had finally returned to something approaching normal, he rolled into a sitting position and his gaze went straight to Dean who had rolled over onto his side and was curled a little around the swell of his belly. Sam breathed a sigh of relief and hoisted himself back into the chair and reached for his brother’s hand. 

If what he saw was real—and his visions hadn’t been false yet—then Dean was going to die giving birth to a demon spawn. 

Bile rose up the back of Sam’s throat and he swallowed against it, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the back of Dean’s hand. He stayed there for several minutes, blinking into the darkness of the blanket, and then he licked his lips and whispered a prayer,

“Cas, please. Please! If you’re anywhere you can hear this…please help him. Please. Save him. I’m begging you.”

There was no sound in answer, not that he had actually expected it to work. He lifted his other hand up to hold Dean’s between both of his and rolled his head off onto the mattress and closed his eyes.

“Sam.”

Sam jerked awake at the sound of his name. He’d started to doze off with his head resting beside Dean’s arm on the bed. He lifted up, groaned at the aching muscles and looked around in search of the sound that woke him.

“Cas?” Sam’s eyes went big. “You heard me?”

Cas nodded infinitesimally. He was hanging back in the shadows of the now darkened room. Sam glanced at his watch and saw that it was pushing ten o’clock at night and it was a wonder the nurses hadn’t come to force him out of the room.

He laid Dean’s hand carefully on the bed so he didn’t wake him and turned fully to Cas. “I didn’t think that would work,” he said.

“I’m always watching,” Cas said. His voice was low and rough and a little absent as his gaze roved over Dean with something Sam would have equated to wanting in a human being. 

“You’re always…” Sam scowled. “Then why haven’t you been here? I mean, I get that you’re an angel and all, but you—you did this! Come on, man, angel or not, take some responsibility.”

Cas’ eyes finally moved over to Sam, and it was his turn to scowl. “Did what?”

Sam’s jaw dropped. He glanced at Dean. He had assumed this was out in the open the way Dean had talked, but maybe he’d misunderstood. He stumbled a little, uncertain if he should be the one to break the news. “He’s pregnant, Cas.”

“I know.”

Sam was definitely confused now. “You know? But then you just…what? Walk away? I thought you were better than that!”

Cas’ eyes went back to Dean and he came forward a reluctant step. “When I found out, I knew it was time for me to leave, to get out of the way. He didn’t need me anymore.”

“Didn’t need…what the hell, Cas!” Sam scrubbed at his tired eyes. “He does need you. More now than ever.”

“He has you.”

“Of course, he has me, but that’s not the point. I’m not the father. You are,” Sam insisted.

Cas’ visibly started, gaze whipping back to Sam. “That’s impossible.”

Sam stared. “What do you mean it’s impossible?” He gestured to Dean on the bed and the barely visible bump under his t-shirt. “Obviously, it’s not.”

“Sam, do you honestly believe angels are capable of fornicating with humans, much less procreating? Our father would never allow it,” Cas said a little condescendingly.

“Then how…?” Sam fumbled for words again. “He believes it was you, Cas. Said it was definitely you. How could he be wrong?” He was working his way up to a good, stirring fury now. “And why would you say it like that, anyway? What? Are we not good enough to be anything but your playthings!”

Dean stirred beside him, and Sam bit back his next tidal rage at Cas. He came across the room and whispered fiercely at the much shorter man, “He never would have let this happen to him if it wasn’t you. Explain that!”

“I’m sorry, Sam. Truly, I am. I’ve seen how much your brother has suffered the last few months; but the child is not mine.”

“Dammit.” Sam swore viciously. “Cas, what’s going on? Whose could it possibly be?”

“Of all the creatures you have encountered, it is possible that there is one such that may be able to deceive your brother into thinking he was with me.” The angel paused significantly and then slid a narrow look at Sam from the corner of his eye. “Even yourself.”

“What! You think I did this?” Sam almost squeaked. His eyes darted to Dean who had shifted in his sleep but thankfully not woken. “Not that I wouldn’t have if he had asked me—and it’s certainly a more preferable option that having some monster growing inside him—but I was out, Cas. Gone. Good as dead for all anyone could tell. It couldn’t have been me.”

“You were not as dead as you think you were, Sam,” Cas said softly.

Sam looked up, alarmed. “Cas?”

“Lucifer’s powers? Combined with your own?” Cas hazarded. “More than adequate to fool your brother. And you would not remember anything about it.”

Sam’s vision from earlier exploded across his eyes at Cas’ words. “Cas! You said angels can’t procreate. We know demons can fornicate—that’s a no brainer—but can they procreate with a human?”

“No. It is one restriction our father was able to maintain on them.”

The glossy black eyes of that bloody, screeching infant filled Sam’s vision. His knees started to buckle. Cas grabbed him and helped him back to the chair by Dean’s bed. 

“Sam, you did not call me here to berate me for abandoning Dean.” He touched Sam’s now pale cheek. “What is it you need of me?”

Sam stuck his head between his knees, trying to ward off the gray at the edges of his vision. “I—I had a vision. Dean…died giving birth.”

Cas shook his head sadly. “You know I do not have power over death, Sam, I—.”

“No, no, I know that,” Sam said, batting away the idea with a frenetic gesture of his hand. “The baby…it was possessed.”

Cas considered this carefully. “What is it you want me to do, Sam?”

“I don’t—I don’t know. Is there anything you can do? Can we exorcise it?” Sam asked. “If we do, will Dean live?” He looked over at his brother, his eyes filling suddenly. “Will his baby live?”

Cas made an awkward sound in his throat like a strangled groan. Sam looked up. “What?”

Cas moved around the bed and Sam watched as he very tentatively reached out to slip his hand along Dean’s hip and under his arm to rest it on his belly. An anguished smile played at the corners of his mouth and if Sam didn’t know that angels couldn’t cry, he would have sworn he saw tears in Cas’ eyes. 

“Your visions are never wrong, Sam,” Cas said. 

“No…not yet.”

“Then why is this happening now?” he asked. Sam looked at him, confused. Cas moved his hand slightly on Dean as if probing. “Your brother’s body already knows what is coming and this is the solution.”

Sam stood up to join him at the bed and looked across his brother’s still sleeping form.

“Can you do anything, Cas?” he whispered. “Please…. He can’t survive this. You never saw how torn up he was the last times. I can’t let this happen to him. We have to save the baby if we can.”

“Even at the risk of its possession?”

Sam stared at him, anguished and uncertain.

“Sammy…?”

Sam started and looked down to see Dean’s eyes blinking slowly open as he battled his sluggish way to consciousness. He rolled to his back slowly and his arm connected with Cas. He turned his head. 

Sam thought he might cry himself from the look on his brother’s face; the tangled web of need and pain and yearning that broke over him as he looked up into Cas’ eyes.

“Dean,” Cas said. 

“Cas.” Dean’s eyes slipped to Cas’ hand where it rested on his swollen midsection. He covered it with his own. Squeezed tightly.

Sam turned away, unable to bear the pain in Dean’s eyes when Cas told him the truth. He felt Dean’s fingers knot in the back of his shirt and tug him back around. “Sammy? Sammy, you okay?”

Sam choked on a sob, swallowing it painfully. Even in the midst of his pain and uncertainty, and the return of the man he thought had been his lover, his brother cared enough to notice his distress. “Dean, I think…I think I should…”

“Sam,” Cas said softly. “It’s okay.”

Sam nodded blindly, dropping into the chair and burying his face. Dean looked worriedly up at Cas. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Dean,” Cas began, extricating his hand carefully, if a little reluctantly, “Sam asked me here to help you.”

“Help me?” Dean said, his voice taking on an edge. “I’ve prayed for you to come around for months, and all he has to do is ask?”

“Ask and ye shall receive.”

“Don’t quote that bullshit to me,” Dean said, trying to push up on the pillows, but winced and slid back at an uncomfortable cramp in his belly.

“Dean, this child is not mine,” Cas said.

Sam flinched at the naked statement out in the open and fought the urge to cover his ears and hide like a child afraid to listen when his parents argued.

“Wh-what?” Dean said. He tried to sit up again and hissed a breath through clenched teeth at another pain. 

“Dean, please,” Sam begged. “Please don’t get upset.”

“Upset! Why should I be upset?” Dean asked, his voice growing fierce with building anger. He managed to prop himself on a hand and force his body upright even if the other hand clenched and flexed against his cramping abdomen. “I thought it was low that he decided to run out on his fatherly duties, but now! He tries to tell me I don’t even know who the hell I was fucking!”

“Dean!” Sam grabbed his shoulders as Dean doubled over, panting. He pulled him back to rest on the pillows and waited for a tense second while Dean got his breath back and finally opened his eyes. Sam put a hand to his brother’s face, brushed the two day stubble there with a tender thumb.

“Sammy?”

“Dean…” Sam gnawed on his bottom lip. “Cas thinks it’s mine.”

“What…?”

“He thinks that while Lucifer had me, I was able to—to make you believe I was Cas and that…that the baby is actually mine,” Sam whispered.

Dean blinked a few times, slowly. He glanced at Cas and then back to Sam. “If that’s true, Sam, then why do I have a feeling there’s a really big ‘but’ coming after that breaking news flash.”

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, tears forcing their way under his lashes and burning down his cheeks anyway. “Dean, I saw you die. I saw the baby—.”

“He lived, right?” Dean interrupted anxiously. “Tell me he lived, Sam…please.”

Sam nodded weakly. “But Dean…he was possessed.”

Dean processed this with another round of slow blinks. “As in demon?”

Sam nodded.

“Jesus Christ…” Dean pressed himself back into the pillow and fisted a hand against his mouth. He stared up at the ceiling, eyes welling up, tears leaking from the corners and wetting the pillow. When he spoke, it was a defeated and broken whisper,

“Why, Sammy? Why?”

Sam shook his head in a fierce jerk, his fist knotting in the thin hospital blanket. “I don’t know, Dean. I don’t know. Maybe it was Lucifer’s plan all along. Maybe I wasn’t good enough and he thought a brand new vessel would suit his needs better.” He glanced at Cas for some kind of confirmation, but the angel just stared thoughtfully back. Sam’s voice dropped to a tortured whisper, “ Maybe there is no reason…except to torture me.”

Dean’s eyes snapped to Sam’s face.

“He knows that the greatest weakness I have…is you.”

Sam couldn’t look at Dean’s face, couldn’t bear to see the anguish there all tied up with that mother bear rage he only brought out on Sam’s behalf. That he could manage to turn what was suppose to be one of the best experiences in his brother’s life into just one more monster they had to defeat tore his heart to shreds. “Dean, I…”

Dean shifted on the bed, rolling to his hip so he could lean up far enough to drag Sam’s face down level with his own, one strong warm hand on either side of his head holding him prisoner. 

“Sammy, this isn’t your fault. And no matter what happens, you know that I wouldn’t have it any other way. You understand me?”

Sam nodded unevenly, bewildered by the awesome reserves of strength Dean had in him that would make him able to push himself so completely aside in order to help Sam find his way out of the dark.

Cas reached out and touched Dean’s shoulder. “Dean, I think…I can help you. Do you trust me?”

Not long ago, minutes in fact, the answer would have been unerring and instant, but Dean could barely bring himself to look at the angel now. Whatever forgiveness he had left in his soul was all for Sam. Whether Cas had anything to do with this situation, or if his hands were completely clean, Dean couldn’t find it in himself to let the angel off the hook for his months of silence. 

So, it was Sam who answered for both of them,

“Yes.”

“Then we have to leave here. Now.”

~

The cabin had a slightly musty smell, but it was essentially clean if a little bare. 

Sam struggled against the momentary vertigo of Cas’ apperating trick, and locked his arm more firmly around Dean’s chest. He was panting again, trying not to double over with the cramps squeezing at his middle.

“Cas, whatever we’re going to do, we have to do it fast,” Sam said, searching for a place to lay Dean down. He saw the corner of a bed through a door to the next room and guided Dean slowly across the floor and helped him lie down. A cursory search in the adjoining bathroom yielded a linen cupboard and a couple of extra blankets. He covered Dean and after murmuring a few words of reassurance, he turned back to Cas. 

“Cas, where are we?”

The angel was examining the ceiling beams introspectively. “Not sure, exactly. I remember it vaguely. Just someplace I was once and liked. We won’t be interrupted, though. The family doesn’t come here in winter.” He looked over at Sam. “You realize, Sam, that this all gets solved if you just let the child die here and now.”

Sam cast a glance over his shoulder at Dean who was curled on his side now, hand fisted in the blanket, forcing himself to breath regularly. His heart ached so bad he pressed a hand to his chest just to be sure there was no actual wound. 

“I can’t, Cas. I just can’t. He’s wanted this so much, and I can’t take it away from him.”

“Even with the risks involved?” Cas said. “Even knowing what the outcome will be if we don’t succeed here tonight?”

“Yes.” Sam’s eyes were resolute and hard when he turned back to Cas. “He would take those risks.”

Cas paused, looked back and forth between the brothers. “All right, Sam,” he said. “All right.”

Cas slid a hip down on the bed beside Dean and Sam got down on his knees on the other side.

“Dean? Can you hear me?” Cas asked quietly.

“Hear you just fine,” Dean growled between pants.

Cas put a hand on his shoulder and pulled at him gently until he was on his back. He looked across the bed at Sam. “Sam, help me hold him. This…isn’t going to feel good.”

Dean’s eyes snapped open. “What the hell are you going to do?”

Ignoring the angry bite in Dean’s voice, Cas reached forward and put his hand on Dean’s midsection again. Dean tried to shove him away, but Sam grabbed his wrists and held him. Dean’s eyes flashed with fury in his brother’s direction before his bit down on another hissed breath of pain and dropped back into the pillows. 

“What are you going to do, Cas?” Sam asked warily.

“The child cannot survive an exorcism at this stage in its development. Any attempt would result in its death,” Cas said flatly. 

“Damn it, Cas,” Sam swore. “What’s the good news?”

“It also cannot be fully possessed at this stage without the same result,” Cas continued. His face was growing tense with concentration as he spread his finger’s wide over Dean’s belly and pressed down a little. “Once the child is fully developed, I can banish the demon before it takes hold.”

“Fully developed?” Sam asked weakly. “You mean you’re going to…?”

Cas raised half an eye to him and Sam swallowed, all the gruesome scenes of accelerated demon pregnancies from bad horror flicks flooding to mind. He slumped a little on the mattress, his grip on Dean loosening. Cas’ mouth hitched in something close to a sardonic smile. “Sam, you’ve watched too much TV.”

Sam shuddered and smiled weakly.

“This will take hours,” Cas said. “If I move too fast, I could kill the infant…or Dean.”

Dean was still struggling against the pressure of Cas’ hand and Sam’s firm grip.

“Please, Dean, do not struggle. The pain will be enough as it is. Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

Dean shot Sam a quick look and Sam’s stomach flipped at the undertow of fear in his brother’s eyes. He put a hand on Dean’s forehead and pressed reassuringly. “It’ll be okay, Dean. I’ll be right here.”

Dean darted a look at Cas. It was still sharp with unresolved anger over the angel’s adamant denial of any responsibility for the situation; not that Dean was any less at fault—he knew that—but he had been hanging onto that one night so many months ago like a lifeline. Not just because of the baby but because it had given him the strength to hold on for Sam when he really and truly thought he might give up. He had thought for a little while that an angel had loved him so much he had disavowed all his heavenly ties in order to love a human—to love him.

Now, not only did the child not belong to Cas, but it had a mainline connection to hell if Sam’s vision was right—and he was never wrong. The idea that Sam had somehow duped him into believing he was Cas should make him furious, but it didn’t. Not really. In fact, it eased the knot of guilt he’d been feeling in his gut for months whenever Sam touched him, smiled at him, grazed his hand against his belly in hopes of feeling a flutter or kick. 

He rolled his wrist in Sam’s grip so he could fold his fingers around Sam’s and squeeze tightly. Sam squeezed back.

“Okay,” Dean said. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Cas nodded and his face blanked in concentration. Dean felt the cramping ease almost immediately which was an unutterable relief, but it was replaced by an uncomfortable pressure that he thought was Cas pressing down on him at first but, when he looked, discovered it was actually the reverse. He sucked in a panicked breath when he saw his belly almost visibly swell under Cas’ hand. Sam’s grip tightened.

“It’s okay, Dean. Just relax. Relax,” he urged softly, but there was an edge of unease in his voice, too, as he watched the impossible scene.

Dean took a careful breath and then another, willing his muscles to unravel, except those that held tightly to Sam’s hand. The feeling of pressure increased gradually becoming more uncomfortable until it bordered on pain. He bit back a groan as the baby kicked hard and connected with some tender organ.

“Sam, I need…” Cas’ whispered. His voice was strained and his eyes had drifted closed, his face still a blank, impassive slate.

“Cas?” Sam instinctively reached forward, covering the angel’s hand where it rested against the curve of Dean’s belly, now almost twice the size it had been. He felt the anxious motion of the fetus inside. “What can I do?”

At Sam’s touch, Cas’ face relaxed a little. He opened his eyes again. “You’ve done it. Thank you. My…control slipped a little. It’s all right now.” He paused. “The child is anxious. Frightened. Calm him, Sam.”

Sam frowned in bewilderment, but Cas nodded encouragingly and he shifted his hands down to rest beside Cas’. He tentatively tried to open himself, to reach out to the life inside his brother, trying to exert a calming presence. Dean’s free hand reached across and covered Sam’s and he spoke in a strained voice,

“Hold on, little guy. I know you’re freaking out right now. Dad is, too.” Dean laughed tightly. “But we’re gonna get this done. I promise.”

Sam felt the frantic motion under his hand lessen somewhat, and he smiled up at Dean. The reprieve was short lived though, as Dean arched upward, biting back a cry of pain.

“Jesus…God! Cas!” Dean hissed, huffing hard at the lancing pain in his middle.

“Dean, I’m sorry. I…” Cas shifted his hand a little. His brow furrowed.

“Cas?” Sam asked, moving his hands to Dean’s shoulders to try and help hold him still. He noticed the faint white glow under Cas’ hand on Dean’s growing belly. “Cas, are you all right?”

Cas breathed deeply, opened his eyes. “Yes, yes fine. I’m sorry, Dean. This is difficult…for both of us.”

Dean nodded but kept his teeth locked tight against another outburst. He rolled his hips unconsciously, trying to alleviate the pain and Sam reached for him, holding him still.

“Hush, Dean. Hush. It’ll be okay. It will. I’m right here,” Sam whispered. He cast a look under his lashes at Cas. “The demon?”

Cas shook his head. “No. The demon has not gotten hold. So long as I keep contact, it cannot. I can feel it trying…but I will not give it the opportunity.” He looked straight into Sam’s eyes then. “I promise you, Sam. I won’t.”

Sam nodded and settled back on his heels again.

The hours drug out pushing past midnight and slipping into the darkest part of early morning. Dean beat back against the constant onslaught of pain only crying out once or twice more. Sam had stretched out beside him on the bed and was using his whole body to try and alternately restrain and comfort his brother. 

Finally, somewhere in the hours just before dawn, Cas sat back a little, letting his hand slip away from Dean’s body.

“Cas?” Dean asked tiredly.

“It is done,” he said.

Sam sat up on an elbow. “What now?”

Cas smiled a little as if Sam had asked the obvious. “We wait.”

“Wait?”

“What happens next will come naturally, Sam,” Cas said. He stood up and moved off into a corner of the room, dropping into a chair and letting his head fall to rest on the back.

Sam shifted on the bed carefully. “Dean?”

“Yeah.” Dean rolled his head to the side. He was sweaty and pale, but his breathing was regular and for now at least he didn’t seem to be in pain.

“How’re you doing?” Sam asked, smoothing the back of his hand against Dean’s hot cheek. 

Dean opened his eyes briefly, sliding them sideways to look at the hard, round mound of his belly that moved up and down slightly with every breath and was occasionally poked out of shape by the dim outline of a foot or elbow or some other body part the baby thrust against the confines of his prison. 

“This t-shirt will never be the same again,” he said.

Sam laughed. It was almost maniacal with relief. He laid his hand gently against the straining fabric and felt the baby nudge his palm. “You’re right. It won’t.”

Dean shifted closer, grimacing a little at the effort it took to move the extra mass and weight. Sam dropped his head back down to the pillow beside Dean’s and looped his arm over their heads so he could scratch his fingers lightly through Dean’s short, soft, and slightly damp hair above his ear. His other hand he kept on the steep curve of his brother’s belly, marveling at the feel of it. 

He knew Dean had felt guilty about having Cas’ baby, and Sam treating it like it was the most okay thing in the world to him had probably only made that worse. He had honestly thought he was not jealous at all—he kept telling himself that anyway—but now, with the constant flutter and push of the baby beneath his hand and the knowledge that it was indeed most likely his, Sam realized he had felt an intense jealousy that was only now making itself known.

“Sam?” Dean asked, sensing the sudden tension in his brother’s body.

Sam forced himself to relax and smiled down at Dean. “Nothing. It’s nothing, Dean. I just…I think I only just realized how much I wanted this.”

“Well, that’s good. ‘Cause I’m sure not gettin’ up for the midnight feedings. I had enough of that with you. It’s payback time.” Dean said it in a joking manner, but Sam could hear the husky sound of tears in his voice. He rolled his head slightly and planted a kiss on the top of Dean’s head.

“I think you should rest while you can,” he suggested. “It won’t be long now.”

“Yeah,” Dean tried to maneuver into a more comfortable position. The new weight of his fully rounded out belly was pressing down in places that lit up nerve endings he had never been aware of before.

Sam helped him sit up a little and folded a couple of pillows behind his shoulders to take the pressure off his lungs, but it only put downward force on Dean’s pelvis and he grimaced.

“You okay? Can I get you anything?” Sam asked.

Dean shifted again and waved him off a little. “Maybe some water. Other than that, I think it’s just…dealing with the discomfort.”

Sam smiled sympathetically and got off the bed to go find the kitchen and some water. He stopped by Cas’ chair and gave him a significant look. The angel rose slowly and followed him out of the room.

Sam found some glasses in the kitchen cabinets and ran the tap for a few seconds before filling one three quarters full. He leaned on the counter then and stared out the window. Cas leaned against the doorframe behind him.

“Cas, what are you doing?”

“What do you mean, Sam?”

Sam cast a narrow look over his shoulder. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I saw the light.”

Cas would have shrugged or sighed if he’d been human, but as it was, he just stared at Sam a moment before turning his attention to the ceiling beams again. “I am doing what you asked.”

“I didn’t mean at the cost of yourself!” Sam said fiercely, making sure to check the volume in his voice so Dean didn’t hear. 

Cas brought his gaze back down, blinked once, and then said languidly, “Didn’t you?”

“Jesus Christ…” Sam ran a hand through his hair. “Dean’s gonna have a fit.”

“He won’t know. Not until it’s too late.”

“Cas! You can’t do this! You can’t just…give up.”

“I’m giving up nothing,” Cas said. “I am giving your brother and your son what they need to survive. I can think of no greater use for my grace.”

Sam stumbled over Cas calling the baby his son. He’d resigned himself to being the stand in father for Dean’s son almost the minute Dean had told him the news, but he still hadn’t really taken ownership of the life growing inside his brother, as much as he’d wanted to, it hadn’t felt right with Dean still pining for Cas and then there was always the chance Cas would come back to claim his son. In the other room with his broad palm splayed warmly across Dean’s belly was the first time Sam had dared to let the idea that this child was really his settle into his heart, and it felt amazing. Despite himself he smiled, and that made Cas smile, too. 

“This is why I do it,” he said and touched Sam’s arm, almost as if he’d read his mind.

Sam nodded, “I just wish—.”

A sound that bordered on a roar coming from the the bedroom had Sam and Cas bolting from the kitchen.

Dean was on the edge of the bed, hunched over, panting. Sam dropped down beside him. “Dean?”

Dean grabbed Sam’s shoulder and the strength of his grip made Sam gasp. “It’s time, Sammy. He’s comin’.”

“Well, that was fast,” Cas said.

Both brother’s turned to scowl at him. He came forward and touched Dean’s shoulder. “Lie back.”

Dean did as Cas said, letting Sam take his weight and help prop him up against the sturdy oak headboard.

“Sam, there,” Cas pointed to the foot of the bed as he stripped off his trench coat and rolled up his sleeves and reached out to hold both hands a bare inch from Dean’s taut belly.

Another contraction grabbed Dean and had him bucking off the mattress at the heart of its throes. Sam leaned on his ankles to try and hold him still.

“God, damn! Sammy…this hurts like a sonofabitch!” Dean ground out between clenched teeth.

Cas set his hands on Dean and Sam noticed how his face almost instantly paled. He closed his eyes and his brow furrowed. “Don’t fight it, Dean. Use it. Use the pain.”

Dean tried to force himself to relax and breathe. It worked—until the next contraction had him. Sam flinched as Dean cried out, his belly tightening visibly under the strained fabric of his t-shirt. He moved his hands to rub at Dean’s shins and the backs of his calves, massaging at the knotted muscles that formed when Dean tried to force his hips up and away from the terrible pressure bearing down in his pelvis.

“Cas, can we do anything?” Sam begged quietly.

“No. It’s up to nature now, Sam,” Cas whispered. He moved his hands a little and Sam could see them beginning to glow softly.

Dean bucked again, crying at the force of the contraction, his hands moving futilely against the hard globe of his belly, trying ineffectually to shove Cas away, sure that whatever he was doing he was causing the pain to be worse. 

Sam inched up the mattress between Dean’s feet and took hold of his hands. “Hold onto me, Dean. Just hold on. Push, pull, yell, break my hand if it helps…just hold onto me.”

On the next contraction, Dean did exactly that. He groaned, grunted, and shouted his way through the pain, pulling on Sam’s hands and squeezing the bones with bruising force until Sam’s fingers tingled and he almost lost feeling in them. 

“Good, Dean,” Cas said. “Good. I can feel it…”

Dean yelled out as Cas’ hand moved to the lower curve of his belly and felt the baby drop down into position.

“Jesus, Sammy…I can’t—I can’t do this!” Dean was close to panicking.

“Yes, you can, Dean,” Sam said as calmly as he could manage. He shook Dean’s hands in his own to get his focus back. “Yes, you can. Now, let the pain work for you. Push when you need to, and just hold onto me.”

~

They went on for what seemed like hours like this. Sam talking Dean up and down through every contraction, Cas doing…whatever it was he was doing to keep Dean and their son alive. The sun was only beginning to climb the horizon, though, when Dean bellowed with the worst contraction yet,

“Sammy, he’s coming! Jesus, I can feel it.” Dean spread his knees further apart, trying to open up his hips even more to let the baby through. “He’s coming…now!”

“Good, good. You’re doing good.” Sam braced his elbows on Dean’s spread knees and reached forward. “Okay, Dean, come on. You can do this.”

Dean grabbed Sam’s forearms and hauled himself forward, bearing down hard. Cas kept his hands firmly on the taut globe of Dean’s belly, sweat pouring off his face now. 

“Cas?” Dean gasped, sparing a fraction of his concentration for the angel as the contraction momentarily released him.

Cas gave a sharp shake of his head, keeping his eyes closed in concentration. “Just push, Dean. Push now.”

Another contraction mounted Dean’s belly and he nearly roared at the force of it. He hunched forward, pulling hard on Sam’s arms, face contorted with effort; but he was rewarded with a definite forward movement as the baby’s head crowned fully and Sam’s eyes went big and round.

“That’s it, Dean! That’s it! You’re almost there. Just a little more.”

“Now,” Cas said. “Push…now!”

Dean wrenched on Sam’s arms, yelling as he bore down hard on Cas’s command and felt the baby move down and out. The contraction stayed with him and he rode it to the end, forcing every last ounce of energy into the push until he felt a sudden rush from his insides as the baby slipped from his body and into Sam’s waiting hands. 

Sam looked up at him, all big sloppy grin and tearstained cheeks. His voice was choked and barely above a whisper as he wiped the tiny body clean and bundled it in an overlarge blanket. “Dean…you did it. You really did it.”

Dean flopped back on the pile of pillows and blankets and waited, exhausted, as Sam secured the bundle and slowly handed it over to Dean’s waiting arms.

Dean wasn’t one to believe any of that crap people always said about forgetting all the pain the instant you held your child, and maybe because he was a man he would remember it a little…but not very much. Not much at all.

The baby was peculiarly silent, but vibrantly aware. Piercing blue eyes that Dean had a sneaking suspicion would not fade and change over time, peered up at him inquiringly. He stroked one still slightly wet, sticky cheek and smiled and swore he was rewarded with the barest lift of a transparent eyebrow. He touched a fingertip to the baby’s bottom lip and after a moment of serious consideration the little mouth latched on tightly and sucked vigorously.

“I’ll see if I can find something that’ll work for a bottle,” Sam said, still awestruck. He started to turn away but stopped at Cas’ heavy moan.

“Cas?” Sam reached for the angel just as he swayed sideways and started to go down. “Cas!”

Dean looked up. “Cas, man, you all right?”

When Cas didn’t answer immediately, Sam helped him to a chair and then squatted in front of him. “Cas, what’s wrong? Can I do anything?”

Cas shook his head slowly and raised his eyes to Dean and the baby for a moment, the ghost of a sad smile crossing his lips—something they rarely saw him do—before he shifted his gaze back to Sam and it became urgent.

“Sam, you help him. You stay by him always. You hear me. No more stupid self-sacrificing moves.  For either of you.” Cas doubled over then, his breath coming suddenly short.

“Cas!” Dean shouted. 

But Cas didn’t look at Dean, only at Sam, put a hand on his shoulder. “You do that for me, Sammy.”

“Cas, I don’t—.”

“Please…” Cas whispered. He tried to straighten but some immense pain overtook him and he convulsed under Sam’s hands and wrapped his arms around himself. The whites of his eyes were suddenly bright and iridescent. “All that I am…for you,” he whispered, brokenly, finally looking back at Dean and their newborn son. “I’ll see you again one day.”

Light began to leak from Cas’ eyes and ears and mouth and nostrils, blinding white light that both men had seen more than once. 

“Cas, no!” Dean cried. “Don’t do this! Don’t you dare do this!”

Sam rolled onto his backside and scooted quickly across the floor, turning his whole body to shield Dean and the baby at the last second before the entire room was flooded with burning white angel-light. 

When it had faded, Sam eased himself away and looked over his shoulder at Cas’ now inert form.

“What—what the hell was that?” Dean sputtered. “What happened!”

Sam put a firm hand on his shoulder. Dean was physically and emotionally spent after the last twelve hours, and Sam was afraid this might prove to be his breaking point. He squeezed his brother’s shoulder and then leaned over to Cas’ body, even knowing the angel was dead, he had to check for himself and for Dean.

“Sam?”

Sam shook his head a little after feeling for a pulse or any other sign of life. 

“Dammit!” Dean squeezed his eyes shut. “Dammit…”

Sam came back to Dean’s side and put a large palm against the top of the baby’s head and an arm around his brother’s shoulders. For an instant Dean fought him, resisting the offered comfort, but he was too tired and too drained on nearly every level; so he finally gave in and leaned into Sam’s embrace.

“Why, Sam? After all this…why?” he asked, voice graveled with tears he refused to shed.

“I think…” Sam started slowly, unsure how Dean was going to react to the truth of what Cas had done to save Dean and the baby. “He gave his grace to you Dean. He knew you wouldn’t live through this without it, and he couldn’t bear to see you suffer; to see our son die; so he gave the only thing he had left.”

The tears did come then. They came in the form a huge, silent wracking sobs that Sam could feel deep in his own ribcage as he held his brother and their baby tightly to him.

“Sammy, I never told him…I never got to tell him…”

“He knew, Dean,” Sam  assured him. “Why else would he have come when you needed him most, or given you the only and best gift he could…life.”

“I was angry with him..so angry. I thought…I don’t even know what I thought,” Dean mumbled. “And then he came back and said he wasn’t the father, and…I hated him for it. I felt so betrayed. Like I wasn’t good enough. And now…”

Sam tightened his arm around Dean’s shoulders. “There’s no question, Dean. He loved you. If he never learned any other human emotion. He learned that; and you’re the one who taught it to him.”

Dean nodded a little and cuddled the baby closer. Sam looked down at the infant, smiling. He brushed his thumb over his forehead and across the fine eyebrows. “What are we going to call him?”

“John Castiel Marion Winchester,” Dean said without hesitation.

“Wow. That’s quite a mouthful for such a little fella,” Sam said, laughing. 

“We can call him JC for short,” Dean said, grinning.

“JC…okay. Yeah, I like that,” Sam agreed. He bent his head and kissed one plump cheek and was rewarded with a quite chortle. He grinned and turned his head to plant a kiss on Dean’s lips. “I love you, Dean Winchester.”

“Don’t go gettin’ all mushy on me, huh?” But Dean was smiling, not moving away as Sam brushed his lips again softly. He lowered his voice to a whisper and sobered a little, looking Sam in the eye. “I couldn’t have done it without you, brother. I really couldn’t have. I need you, Sammy…always.”

Sam nodded, smiling still despite the tears that found their way down his face. “I’ll be here, Dean. I promise.”

 

FIN

 


End file.
